The BibleWorks User Notes, Editor, and Report Generator tools are great ways to create teaching notes and class handouts rapidly. Unique linking features in the BibleWorks Editor enable you to open quickly BibleWorks lexicons and grammars to the precise section you want to show to your students.

User Notes Note-Taking Strategies

Whether you use the automatically-updating User Notes or the standard Editor depends upon your purposes and your personal preference. Both the User Notes and the Editor have the same capabilities and features, except that the User Notes are tied to specific chapters and verses and can load automatically when the Browse Window display verse changes, while the Editor is a general-purpose note-taking tool. Below are some suggestions for when and how to use both types of note-taking tools.

Chapter and Verse Notes

Chapter and verse notes are useful when you are writing notes that are based upon a chapter or verse of the Biblical text.

If you are teaching a book study, you can use the chapter notes to write and display introductory information for each chapter. (You may want to include introductory notes to the entire book in the chapter 1 note.)

When you begin taking notes on individual verses, uncheck the Chapter checkbox at the top of the User Notes tab. When the Chapter checkbox is unchecked, the note that appears is for the Browse Window verse. When you change Browse Window verses, the note for the new verse displays automatically as long as the Autoload checkbox is checked.

One benefit of the automatically-updating User Notes is that your note appears whenever your display a verse in the Browse Window that contains a note. In this way you can benefit from your previous study, plus you can continue to add to and refine your content as you conduct future study.

Topical Notes

For most topical studies you will want to use the Editor rather than the User Notes since most topical studies are not organized according to chapters and verses.

If the main content of your topical study is based upon chapter and verse studies, then you may want to use the User Notes and compile your notes into one document using the Report Generator. (We will discuss using the Report Generator later in this Classroom Tip.)

Using the User Notes in the Classroom

Using the BibleWorks User Notes and Editor may have a number of advantages for classroom presentation over certain other types of common presentation methods. This depends, of course, upon your teaching style, personal preferences, and the general content of your course lectures.

When the Biblical text is the lecture focus, this is a great opportunity to use the BibleWorks User Notes for on-screen display. Because your User Notes appear whenever you display a verse in the Browse Window, your students will see your notes automatically.

The BibleWorks Editor files can contain links to lexicons, grammars, and other resources that are available in BibleWorks. This is useful for rapid opening of a lexicon or other resource during a class lecture.

To include a link, place your cursor in the note where you would like the link to appear. Next open the resource through the Resource Summary Window. Then select the down arrow to the right of the Insert Hyperlink button on the Editor toolbar.

From the menu that appears select "Insert Link to Last Resource Summary Item."

If you later plan to create printed handouts to distribute to your students, you will want to copy and paste the content of the links into your notes instead of using links only, as the content of the links will not be contained in the printed notes.

The BibleWorks Editor can also include links to web pages. You can type the website address directly into the note, or copy-and-paste the website address into the note.

You can include pictures in the BibleWorks Editor. For example, you may want to copy a section of one of the BibleWorks Maps, and include that image in your note.

You may wish to have different sets of user notes for different classes or writing projects. For a short video on how to create a new notes directory, see the Study Guide "Creating More than One Set of User Notes."

Creating Student Handouts

You can distribute your User Notes to your students as either electronic files or as printed handouts.

You can post your notes on a website or send the files as an email attachment. If the students are BibleWorks users, they can include the user notes in their program as chapter and verse notes or as a topical note, depending upon what you have created.

The Report Generator is the fastest way to create student handouts from your chapter and verse notes. After you create your chapter and verse notes, open the Report Generator from Tools | Report Generator. In the Report Generator Window select the verse range of the notes you wish to add to your handout file. If you wish to include a Bible text with each note, add the abbreviation in the box "Include Biblical Text for these Versions." Under Report Options, select the boxes for "Include Chapter Notes" and "Include Verse Notes." You may also want to select the box "Eliminate verse with no notes." Uncheck all other boxes. Click the "Build Report" button, and the report appears in a new Editor window. Name and save the report.

BibleWorks Editor uses a standard format that can be opened in common word processing programs like Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, and OpenOffice. Save your notes files as Rich Text Format (rtf) files, and you can open and format them using your favorite word processor. For files that are saved as BWW files, simple change the extension BWW to RTF and open them in your word processor.